Research Computing

Research Computing Services provides computing, storage, and visualization resources and services to support research that has specialized or highly intensive computation, storage, bandwidth, or graphics requirements. Typical applications include bioinformatics, geographic information systems (GIS), statistics, data analysis, molecular modeling, scientific and engineering simulation, and visualization. Research Computing resources and services are widely used by researchers across both the Charles River and Medical campuses.

The primary computing resource is BU’s Shared Computing Cluster (SCC), a heterogeneous Linux cluster with an array of storage options located at the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC). A broad selection of software for scientific research computing is supported.

Consulting and programming assistance are available from the scientific and visualization programmers and consultants and system administrators. Tutorials and training materials are also available for getting started and becoming more proficient with the resources.

Visualization resources include graphics and virtual reality facilities and software as well as staff expertise to support a broad range of research application areas.

People using the SCC must be a member of a Research Computing Services (RCS) research project. BU faculty may create SCC research projects, serve as the Lead Project Investigators, and add their collaborators (students, researchers outside of BU, etc.) to their research projects. Undergraduate and graduate students interested in using the facilities, but not yet associated with a research project, may contact help@scc.bu.edu to inquire about start-up accounts with very small CPU allocations and limited time durations.

A base-level of computing and storage resources is available on a fair-share allocation basis without charge through the shared service model. For those researchers who require additional computing and storage resources within the managed shared environment, the buy-in and Storage-as-a-Service programs are available at highly subsidized rates.

Resources are managed in close consultation with the Research Computing Governance Committee, the Shared Computing Faculty Advisory Committee, the BU Center for Computational Science, and the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering.